When people think of animated Star Wars shows they always think of shows like Star Wars Rebels or Star Wars: The Clone Wars. They do however never think of the anime show with this show being one of if not the most underrated pieces of modern Star Wars media as not alot of people talk about and well the new season of this show has finally dropped and well you all just knew that I had to check out this new season the very first chance that I got and so then join me as I give you my SPOILER FILLED review of the season that sees us catching up with old friends and making new ones with the show in question being called simply just "Star Wars: Visions" enjoy.
As with both of the previous seasons of this show this show is an anthology show and therefor doesn't have one main plot as all nine of the shows episodes all have different plots to them. Now then interms of what I personally thought / felt about the actual plots that are actually featured / presented to us in this very season well then in all honesty I in all honesty personally thought / felt that the actual plots that are actually featured / presented to us in this very season was in all honesty very mixed. With there being some plots that worked really well like for example the plot for episode two "The Song Of Four Wings" was a really decent plot and one that really did fit well within the short film format of the show but on the flip side of that we have episodes like "BLACK" and "The Lost Ones" with Black not even having a plot as it's just a collection of animated images and that's really it and the plot to "The Lost Ones" just being kind of dull not bad persay but not good either but when we do get an episode with a good plot like episode four "The Bounty Hunters" it really does shine and stand out because it shows us just how good that this show could be when it has some decent plots to it and while we do get glimpses of that all throughout this season this is a case where the bad episodes really do bring the season down due to how bland or just OK that there plots are alot of the time and yet if the season had more good plots in it or just improved upon the episodes with the bad plots then the season as a whole would be a whole more stronger with the plots that are in this show also being really rather entertaining and as well as being really rather engaging as well in my freaking opinions anyways / at least.
Starring in this show is Brian Tee as Ronin , Emma Myers as Chita , Karen Fukuhara as F and Kimiko Glenn as Kara. Also starring in this show is Aki Toyosaki as Woopas , Anna Sawai as Sevn , Kenta Miyake as A Stormtrooper , Liam Karlsson as Yuko , Ronny Chieng as IV-A4 , Sonoya Mizuno as Nakime , Stephanie Hsu as Crane , Tsuyoshi Koyama as A Stormtrooper , Andrew Kishino as Juro , Frank Todaro as Unda , Freddie Highmore as Teto , Gary Littman as CZ-D16 , George Takei as The Toad , Harvey Guillén as BILY and Darth Bear , James Sie as Master , Jodie Turner-Smith as En O , Jonathan Lipow as Oyabun Que Dama , Joseph Lee as Jin-Sim Canbelon , Judith Light as Gleenu , Julian Paz Fedorov as Sola , Kimberly Brooks as Joona , Lincoln Bonilla as Leon , Major Attaway as Anda , Mark Strong as Shad-Rah Varcanella / Zero , Masi Oka as Ethan , Patrick Seitz as Homen and A Yakuza Trooper , Ryan Potter as Ron , Simu Liu as Zhima , Steve Buscemi as Fox Ear , Suzy Nakamura as Anée-san , Tanner Buchanan as Arloo , Trevor Devall as Admiral Kiucee , Victoria Grace as Aman , Will Sharpe as Grand Master and Zoe Rux as Karin.
Now then interms of what I personally thought / felt about the actual acting that's actually featured / presented to us in this very show well then in all honesty I in all honesty personally thought / felt that the actual acting that's actually featured / presented to us in this very show was in all honesty really good. Which is something that does make alot of sense as not only are a bunch of actor reprising their respective roles from Volume 1 of this show and there for have somewhat of an idea of how best to portray there respective characters but alot of this shows actors are a bunch of really good actors in their own right as well be from acting in front of the camera or voice acting with that skill really coming though in this season as all of this shows actors really do know how to turn in a good performance with there not really being a single bad actor in this show and while yes some actors are better then others in this season as Liam Karlsson is pretty wooden as Yuko but at the same time with an anthology show that was always going to be the case as your always going to get actors that are better in other episodes and that are better then other actors in this show with perhaps the best actor in this whole entire season being Freddie Highmore as Teto as he turns in a performance that can have you laughing one minuet and then in the very same scene he'll say something that is utterly heartbreaking and it is something that does come through in his performance as the character with it even making Teto one of if not the best character in the whole season with the acting that's in this very show really being helped by the fact that this shows scripts are just so good that all this shows actors have to do is just say the lines as they are written and a good performance will come out of them naturally which is something that really does help to raise the overall quality of the acting that's in this very show.
Doing the animation for this show is Kamikaze Douga , ANIMA , Project Studio Q , Production I.G , Wit Studio , Kinema Citrus , Studio Trigger , Polygon Pictures and David Production. Now then interms of what I personally thought / felt about the actual animation that's actually featured / presented to us in this very show well then in all honesty I in all honesty personally thought / felt that the actual animation that's actually featured / presented to us in this very show was in all honesty really good with the animation for the show as a whole being of a really standard but in saying that tho there are some episodes that don't have the best quality animation in them like for example "Yuko's Treasure" where the animation does look a little bit flat almost as if it's trying to copy Toei Animation's style instead of just being it's own unique thing but one things for sure tho and that's he fact all of this episodes animation is of a better quality then the animation seen in One Punch Man season 3 as here there's actual motion with things moving all of the time with all of the episodes having a lot of detail be it in there backgrounds in the character designs with newcomers to the series Polygon Pictures proving why they are the go to studio in Japan for 3D CGI animation as there episode "The Bird Of Paradise" is perhaps the best animated episode in this batch of episodes and while the studios that you expect great work from like Trigger , Wit and Production I.G it's the more lesser known studios really do shock you with how good that there animation is and while the bigger studios do still indeed have high quality animation in their respective episodes you expect it from them and therefor it's not all that surprising when it turns that there episodes have high quality animation but with the lesser known studios that's where you get to some truly wonderful piece of animation.
SPOILERS START HERE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
If you were expecting a sequel episode to the episode The Twins then prepared to be let down as that's one of the episodes from Volume 1 that actually doesn't get a sequel episode this season with there being sequels to "The Ninth Jedi" , "The Duel" and "The Village Bride" with the rest of this season being new stories. However tho the fact that a good chunk of this season is made up of sequel episodes does say that the makers of those episodes either A couldn't be bothered to come up with original stories and so just went back to what they knew would work or B just didn't have the time to come up with original stories which is something that does seem to be case for "The Duel: Payback" and "The Lost Ones" as they both feel like there original episodes almost to a fault with even The Duel's sequel episode even having kind of a similar plot to it just with a different set up as in this new episode Ronin has to team up with a Sith when a Jedi seeking revenge for something that Ronin did in his past comes hunting him down with the only thing that sets this episode apart from The Duel being the fact that it has an action scene inside of an At-At and that's really it but with the sequel for The Ninth Jedi tho there is somewhat of an excuse as to why that episode is basically a pilot episode as there is going to be a spinoff show airing next yea called Star Wars Visions Presents with The Ninth Jedi being turned into a full length anime series with this seasons sequel episode basically being a pilot episode to that show with the episode even ending on a To Be Continued as well but for the other two episodes there really was no excuse for them to be as similar to the original episodes as they ended up being as all that does is remind people of the original episode.
Whilst the first Volume of this show is so far the best one due to the fact that it has the more engaging stories in it. This season does have some really good episodes as well with the likes of "The Bounty Hunters" for example being a really good example of that due to the fact that episode not only has a really good plot but also has some really good characters in it as well with Sevn being a good example of just how to do a modern strong female character as she does have a past where she was a slave only to be freed by a Jedi but when it turns out that in the eyes of the people that she was a slave for they saw it as her betraying them something which she denies with her even having this attitude where she thinks that she knows everything when in fact she knows nothing being something that does come back to bite her in this season as she and her robot companion get hired to take on what they think are a bunch of rebels causing harm to this one person's business but it turns out that the person that hired them is the true evil one all along and seeing her work that all throughout the episode and have this back and forth with her robot companion is something that does help to make the character seem alot more likable then what she really had any right and while Teto is the best new character for me just due to how entertaining that he was this is the character that could very easily lead a series of her own as there's so much to explore with her character that it really would seem like a waste to just have her in this one episode and then never hear from her again where as if the character was given more episodes in the future or perhaps even a full anime series of her own then she very easily could become one of the best new characters that Disney has ever introduced into the world of Star Wars
Episode was we do have alot of really good episodes this year with there really only being two episodes that aren't that good with those oddly enough being the last two episodes of the season. As those episodes "The Bird Of Paradise" and "BLACK" just aren't that fun to watch with "The Bird Of Paradise" being a confusing episode that is bor9ng at the best of times and confusing , hard to follow and just flat out boring at the worst of times as very little actually happens in that episode that advances what could have been a really good premise with a Padawan learning what it truly means to be a Jedi which is a really good premise it's just one that needed to be handled alot more better then what it actually was and that's it. With "BLACK" on the other hand despite it's really unique premise with it trying to tell the story of a stormtrooper going into battle but how it's done makes it feel like your high as a kite as none of the visuals barely make any sense whatsoever which does make that episode hard to follow with that episode being one that is better of being dropped from the show as a whole as much like with "The Bird Of Paradise" not much actually happens only here you can barely make it what's actually meant to be happening in the first place which is something that really does make that episode alot more hard to follow with "The Bird Of Paradise" being an episode that might have been better served being earlier on in the season as having to bad episodes released back to back does make the season come to an end on a bit of a bad note and while that would still be a case with "BLACK" at least then it would just be the one episode that ends it like that and not the two of them.
Now then these episodes has / had an exact grand total running time on no longer then twenty three minuets. With episode running times ranging from the shorter thirteen minuets with the longest one being twenty two minuets with alot of these episodes having just about the right amount of running time to cover there respective running times however tho in saying that tho alot of these episodes don't really use there running times all that wisely as alot of them don't take the time that they really do need to fully develop there plots and whilst this is understand for "The Ninth Jedi: Child Of Hope" as that episode is of course the pilot episode to The Ninth Jedi anime it's not excusable for an episode like "The Smuggler" where despite it having a really good premise and one that does hold alot of promise it's plot is one that could have benefitted from being alot more fleshed out then what it already was with the same thin being true for alot of this shows characters as well as all of the characters barring Sevn aren't that well developed but they all do have alot of promise to be really good characters they just needed to be alot more well thought out with characters like Yuko and BILLY being very one dimensional characters that were done better in early eighties family sitcoms but given that these episodes don't have alot of time to fully develop either the plots or there characters and still tell a good story it is understandable why alot of them aren't that well developed and it doers mean that we have to really get behind the characters that are really well done like Ronin and Sevn for example as those are good examples of just how to do good characters in a short amount of running time but I really will admit that these episodes really do have some really pacing to them tho.
So now then as this is an action show that really does mean that I av e to actually talk about the actual action that's actually featured / presented to us in this very show well then in all honesty I in all honesty personally thought / felt that the actual action that's actually featured / presented to us in this very show was in all honesty really good. With this shows action apart from it's animation being the part of the show as its in this shows action that we get to see alot of really cool pieces of animation all of which do look really good with all nine of this shows episodes having some really good looking action in them and while none of them will match the action from the films these episodes are still worth watching just for the action alone with the best action in the whole show going to "The Bounty Hunters" as we not only get to see a really cool chase scene in space with our main heroes trying to out run a bunch of other spaceships while only just getting by herself but we also get to see a really cool fight in the end when she and her robot companion team up with the rebels to take on the evil boss who fights them whilst wrapped in robot armour which is just such a cool fight scene as it shows of not only how much of a bada*s that Sevn really is as we get to see her thinking on her feet alot of time whilst trying to keep her new friends safe but we also get to see that she can really hold her own in a fight something which is important for a bounty hunter to do and with her episode being done by Studio Trigger her action scenes do have that Trigger flair to them that makes them stand out from all of the action scene in this season which are also really good in their own right as well in my freaking opinions anyways / at least.
SPOILERS END HERE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Overall with The Mandalorian And Grogu coming out next year it is save to say that we still able to get some quality Star Wars content with this season being a good example of that and even tho its not as good as Volume 1 was its still alot more better then what Volume 2 is in my freaking opinions anyways / at least. Now then i've talked about all of the good and as well as all of the bad things that re in this very show in this very review and that really does mean that this very show really does earn itself a grand old score of exactly an 8 out 10 from me.
Now then as for where I personally got all of the images that I personally used in this very review well then boys and girls and as well as ladies and gentlemen I personally got all of the images that I personally used in this very review from the official Disney fandom wiki page , the official Star Wars fandom wiki page and Google Images. With my personally preferred website to use to get the images from this very show that I used in this very review being the really great Google Images really simply just due to the fact that really alot of if not really all of the images that are all really from this very show with alot of them being really better quality then what you'd really think of and all of the images are really of course up and really on Google Images are also really all fairly high in quality and as well as them all being really fairly freaking high in definition.